1
She had been born in fire. The event seemed a signal to her destiny but those around her had no way of knowing. Her mother had birthed her in the flames of their burning house, desperately trying to bring life into the world on the brink of death. Her father had told her that the firefighters had carried her out to him but had been unable to save her mother. They buried her three days after her birth and nobody took notice of the birthmark on the child's right hip, mysteriously branded into her skin in the shape of a flame. Fire had been with her all her life; she lived her life walking through the flames in a way that nobody else could.
She had lived a life akin to the flames with which she so associated. Burning, passionate, alive. She had been an incredibly proactive girl, throwing herself into every available new experience that had come her way. She had carried her gymnastics training nearly all the way to the Olympics at the age of seventeen, but had decided that international competition wasn't for her. She did it simply to know that she could. A medal wasn't going to tell her that she had achieved her goal. She knew in her heart that she had. She danced competitively with the same passion, throwing her entire soul into each movement, leaving her partner with difficulty keeping up. That, too, had faded when she realized that there were greater things to be achieved. She ran the gamut of activities and felt honestly she could say that she had nearly tried everything in such a short amount of time. She had gained confidence and a sense of honor from the tender age of five until she had reached the age of twenty five through years of specialized martial arts training that her father had paid for her to take just to prove that she could. Eventually she had grown so fond of the activity, of how it continually demanded more of her, and never let her achieve her highest goals that she had refused to put it aside. She hadn't settled with simple Tae Kwon Do or Karate although she had learned those as well. She had demanded more of herself and hired a private instructor to teach her Aikido and then moving on to further challenge herself by learning Ninjutsu. Her life had been full and dedicated to exploring every avenue of what she could become.
Because what she was became another thing entirely.
Dean Winchester sat at the bar while his brother, Sam, shifted uncomfortably in the seat next to him. They had come to Texas when a rash of deaths had sprung up in the normally peaceful Hill Country. Each victim had died a different death and there was no connection between the names or ages. So far the total numbered seven but there seemed to be no indication that the deaths would cease any time soon. Sam had his head buried in the paperwork he had gathered so far, autopsy reports and police reports illegally obtained with their numerous fake badges and identities. The music in the back room of a small town sports bar was exceptionally loud and the smoke in the room created a haze over everything. Sam repeated blinked his eyes, trying to ward off the irritation with little success.
"Dean," he said loudly, grabbing his brother's arm to get his attention over the music and women. "Dean!"
Dean turned to him with a perturbed expression on his face. Unlike Sam, who found their job the only thing that mattered most of the time and had little time left over for play, Dean saw traveling the country as an excuse to meet many local girls. The number of names in his cell phone was astounding and Sam often wondered how he remembered each of the girls they belonged to. It was yet another mystery about his older brother that he had little desire to solve.
"What?" Dean demanded, gesturing to the side of the room where a young woman with black hair was dancing to the heavy beat of the music. "You're ruining a good show, man!"
Sam rolled his eyes and jerked his brother closer. "Dean, we're not getting anywhere with this. We've followed every lead possible and it's just more dead ends. We need to figure out a plan."
Dean cast Sam an easy grin and Sam nearly covered his ears, knowing the speech that followed that patent expression. "Sammy, you just need to relax. Look around you! Have some fun and get your head out of body parts on paper."
He could think of little else to do other than roll his eyes again. He gave up trying to catch Dean's undivided attention and went back to rereading the paperwork for what seemed like the zillionth time.
Dean watched the black haired woman dance and drank his beer while his gaze roamed over the crowd. He knew that Sammy was right. They had gotten nowhere with this job. He couldn't make sense of it. Each victim had died in a different way and their bodies had been found in different places. There had been no trace of sulphur at any of the places or any other kind of supernatural residue that indicated it was their kind of job. But at the same time there had been no human traces either. No unlocked or broken doors, fingerprints, footprints, nothing. The police were just as stumped as they were. Dean sighed and his gaze settled on a young woman sitting in the back corner of the room. Her eyes were roaming the crowd the same as he had been but she seemed to be studying and memorizing everything she saw. As if she was searching for something, or someone. Her eyes met his from across the room and she studied him intently.
Dean returned the attention and studied her as well. She was beautiful. Even from the distance he could make out the color of her eyes, a bluish gray. Her hair was light blonde and fell in wavy curls around her face and down her shoulders. She had a small frame that could only be described as petite, but her bearing warned anyone from thinking that she was frail in the least. She couldn't have been over 5'3" and looked like she weighed all of 120 lbs. Her skin was tanned as if she spent much of her time in the sun and her lips were full. She was the kind of girl that Dean would normally be trying to bait her number from but something told him that would be a harder task than it usually was. Maybe it was the set of her expression, the way those constantly observing eyes took in everything and seemed to look right through you. It could have been the way she held herself, how it suggested that there was much more to her than just a pretty face and great body. Dean watched her finish the last of her drink and stand up, moving through the haze and crowd. He blinked his eyes because it appeared that she moved so quickly as to shift through the stands of people without being noticed. Dean grabbed his brother's arm and hauled him to his feet.
"Come on Sammy," he said.
"Dean!" Sam cried. "My stuff! Where the hell are we going?"
Dean ignored his brother and dragged him through the crowd. When he reached the exit he could see the blonde moving down the stairs to the first floor of the building and out the door. He pulled Sam faster and by the time they reached the doorway a black motorcycle was already pulling from its parking place. The girl rode off down the street with a roar and Dean cursed.
"Dean," Sam said. "What was that about?"
Dean shook his head. "I don't know."
2
Her name was Kya Winters. She put her head down against the wind and guided the motorcycle toward the Guadalupe River. The river spanned the length of much of the Hill Country, finding its home in several of the cities. She thought back to the handsome man at the bar. He had been quite good looking and could probably entice flocks of girls to his side if given a mind to. But there had been something in his face that had caught her attention. For a man so young his face should have been carefree and happy, instead it was worn and rugged. She got the feeling he spent much of his time outside of the white picket fence scenario. His eyes had told her a story of pain, loss, tragedy and a deeply imbedded determination. His whole bearing had spoken in volumes for him; he had seen much more in the world than he offered out loud. She wondered who he was and what had him in such pain all the time.
She parked the motorcycle in the gravel that lined the river and slid off, removing her helmet and shaking out her curly blonde locks. She walked closer to the water's edge and sat down, pulling her knees to her chin and resting her head on them. The water lapped quietly at the stone walls that held it in and the moon hung far overhead beyond her reach. If she could have touched it she surely would have tried.
There were times when she blamed herself for her mother's death. Her father had never remarried after her death so devoted to his wife he had been. When she looked at pictures of her mother she knew that she was a reflection of the beauty she had been. Sometimes it pained her father to look at her but Kya didn't take it to offense. She was close to her father and he had done everything in his power to give her the world as her oyster. She wasn't spoiled in any sense of the word. He had wanted her to experience life to its fullest and she had wanted to live a life that would make up for the one her mother had lost. If she was looking down on her daughter Kya wanted to be able to show her mother everything she had accomplished. Her father always told her that her mother would be proud of the woman she had become and she hoped with all her heart that he was right.
The only other family member she had been close to had been her little cousin Elizabeth. She had taken the girl in as the sibling she would never have and the two had grown up together with their respective parents making it possible to see each other every time it was convenient. Kya had come back to Texas when she had received word that the studious and shy Elizabeth had been murdered in her bedroom.
Using her good looks and flirtation skills alone she had gotten a hold of the police report for her cousin's death from a young and inexperienced rookie police officer. The report had left her even more confused. There had been no entry point for a killer, no trace left behind, no struggle, no clue as to what had really happened to Elizabeth. Kya had decided to stick around and see this through in a way that the police officers wouldn't think to look. She had seen plenty in her life and that included some of the things that lurked in the shadows of the night. She was never afraid. She had traveled the globe with her father and seen the different cultures of people and the legends that went with them. Some of them she had even encountered herself. And it was no secret between her or her father that she was something special all by herself.
Despite her being different from all of the other kids her father had never treated her like a freak as some other people around her had. He had loved her despite the gift that set her apart and even encouraged her to learn to use it to the best of her ability. Her power was dangerous without control as attested to the several fire department reports from her childhood.
Kya Winters was a firestarter.
Ever since childhood she had the ability to start fires with her mind and it had been the bane of some of her father's more important valuables. Her innate gift had eventually led her to explore its origin, which had led her down the path of the supernatural. Her search had yielded no major clues and she had eventually just accepted that it was part of who she was. The ability had come in handy several times when she needed it, including a time in Japan with an angry spirit. She hadn't had time to pour gasoline on the bones to rid the populace of it and instead lit them on fire all by herself. She didn't make a living by chasing down the supernatural, she just took care of it if she ran across it. Mostly she let things in the night alone and to their own devices. As long as they left her alone she was fine leaving them in peace as well.
Until now.
She knew that Elizabeth's death had something to do with the supernatural, she just hadn't been able to find the connection yet. She knew that if she stuck with it long enough there would eventually be a breakthrough and answers would yield themselves. She didn't know how she was going to stop more deaths from occurring but she was going to try. And she would give Elizabeth peace by finding out what had killed her.
Dean lay on his bed in the motel room while Sam slept soundly in the bed next to his. He couldn't get the girl from the bar out of his head. There was something about her, something that he couldn't put his finger on. Aside from the obvious fact that she was drop dead gorgeous there had been something about the way she moved that had sent alarm bells off in his head. He couldn't help but feel like she was tied to their current job in some way. It seemed a long shot; meeting a tie to the case from across a bar but weirder things had happened to him. And he still couldn't prove that she was even connected until he had more information on her.
It was just a gut feeling. And Dean Winchester had learned to trust his gut a long time ago with the work that he did. Logic and reasoning usually had no place in the world of spirits and demons. One could follow the clues and find the story with the logic of a scientist, as Sam did, but after that it was a leap off a cliff to find the solution. There were just some things in the shadows that didn't have an easy solution.
Dean sighed and sat up, running his hands through his hair. It was now close to three in the morning, the time of the devil according to some legends. It was the hour in the night in which most demons gained the most power to come out and wreak havoc. The legend followed the logic that it was a demonic joke on heaven. Christ had supposedly died on the cross at three in the afternoon and as a spit in the face to the savior the demons made three in the morning their playtime. Dean wasn't sure if the legend was true but he also wasn't sure that he wanted to find out. There had been so much going on in their lives recently Dean found himself wanting a bit of peace. He was beginning to understand why Sammy dreamed so much of a normal life with a family and white picket fence, not that he would ever admit it to his baby brother. Dean was supposed to live up to his title as the gung-ho warrior who loved his job and everything it entailed. He didn't want to ruin that image and make himself the daydreaming softie.
Dean lay back down and closed his eyes. They had to find a lead tomorrow before the trail got too cold to follow. He needed sleep for a clear mind. Even so, it was another two hours before sleep found him.